Lessenberry on the Pistons' move and newspaper buyouts

This Week in Michigan Politics, Morning Edition host Doug Tribou and senior news analyst Jack Lessenberry talk about who stands to win and who stands to lose after the Pistons leave the Palace of Auburn Hills for the new Little Caesar's Arena in downtown Detroit.

AUDIO: “Our conversation with Mark Rosenbaum, director of Public Counsel’s Opportunity Under Law project.”

On September 13, seven Detroit school children sued state officials.

The suit was filed in federal court in Detroit. It claims that literacy is a fundamental right, and that the state has denied that right by fundamentally excluding Detroit students from the state’s educational system.

Now attorneys for Governor Rick Snyder have fired back. They say there’s no fundamental right to literacy, and this suit is “an attempt to destroy the American tradition of democratic control of schools.”

The U.S. Department of Education says kids at schools with mostly black or Latino students don’t get as good of an education as kids at schools with mostly white students. Generally speaking, their teachers are not as experienced and their buildings are in worse shape.

You can see that in Detroit, Flint, and other Michigan cities.

There was a major Michigan court case that could have ended segregated schools and made it possible for children to have a good education no matter where they lived.

This week, we learned the owners of the Detroit News were offering buy-outs to all of the newspaper’s editorial staff. Then, later in the week, we learned the owners of the Detroit Free Press were offering buy-outs to 17 editorial staff.

Without enough buy-outs, both papers will lay off staff.

This downsizing worries those who fear the eventual death of one of our daily-print newspapers.